Lisa's Blog

The latest on our weekend forecast:

"The Red Cross is advising people — especially those in flood-prone areas — to be prepared for severe weather heading for Atlantic Canada.

Bill Lawlor, director of disaster management in Atlantic Canada, says the Red Cross is ready to mobilize volunteers to go where they are needed.

A good soaking from the remnants of tropical storm Hanna is part of a wet weather triple-header forecast for the region this weekend.

The first system is moving in Saturday ahead of Hanna, the second will come from Hanna on Sunday, and the third involves a system moving in from the west.

By the time it’s all over on Monday, the region could see upwards of 50 to 90 millimetres of rain.

Lawlor says strong winds are also expected, so people should secure lawn furniture and other loose objects in their yard that could become flying debris."

I was up until 2am getting the first draft of a website ready for a client to view today.

I only had a bit of work to get done last night, but then one thing after another. I had to rebuild apache on my webserver for an extension I needed. That too way too long. Then I got on a programming roll and everything was working.

Then my computer crashed.

And then it wouldn't reboot.

And then I spent an hour bonding with a nice fellow in India working Dell's tech support line. He was good, but not good enough to resuscitate my hard drive. It is so dead the computer can't even verify its existence.

I new this was coming - it has had odd behavior, well basically since I bought this computer last November.

So all my files, emails, settings, programs, scripts, photos are gone.

Wait.

But are they?

No they are not! I've been backing up everything religiously to Carbonite! So next week when my new hard drive arrives, I will completely clog up our satellite internet connection to download all my backed up files.

If your hard drive isn't backed up, WHY NOT? You want to lose every digital photo you've ever taken?

Anyway, so I was up until 2am working on Jeff's laptop. I'm totally exhausted today and looking forward to a nap after work!

It was amusing how much rain we got and how the rivers are overflowing, and the roads are washing away. Until yesterday.

We had weathered all the rain so well. Until yesterday.

Our driveway received significant damage. It poured so hard yesterday it washed a lot of our gravel away. We have a long steep widing driveway up the hill through the trees. There are new huge crevasses carved in the driveway all the way down. Deep canyons. Piles of gravel at the bottom. A real mess.

And on top of that, it must have poured into our back walk out faster than the drain could handle. The water must have risen high enough to over flow the basement door sill - and soak HALF of our basement. Nothing was too damaged - a lot of things were wet, but nothing perishable.

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hanna is forecasted to hit us dead on this Sunday. We just can't have any more rain (it is raining now).

Sorry about the glare off the window for some of these - I didn't want to scare them away! Yesterday they caught a red snake because I found the remnants of it on the front lawn!

Today is our one year house anniversary!

August 27th, 2007 was the day we took possession of our house.

I remember we drove from Ontario with the truck FULL of everything that didn't go with the movers - including 2 dogs, a cat, and my aquarium fish!

I remember a year ago this morning, we got to visit the house that morning for the final walk through. The realtor said we could leave some things there - but just in case something went awry with the deal, we decided to go in to town and wait for the deal to finalize - hopefully by noon.

All day we anxiously awaited a phone call to tell us the key was ready for us to pick it up from the lawyer. And we anxiously waited all day. Every few hours the sun would shift and we would move to another parking lot to keep the dogs cool.

I think it was after 4 o'clock before we got the key!

That night we unloaded everything from the truck. I spilled an entire bag of dog food on the driveway because the bottom was soggy. We had a lawn chair each to relax on in our new kitchen. We cooked some pre-made pizzas from the grocery store. Jeff had to cut up the pizza with his pocket knife - we didn't have any dishes or utensils! The moving truck wasn't expected for another day so we slept on the floor of our empty master bedroom. It was even less comfortable than it sounds!

So now here we are a year later. There are a few boxes still not unpacked (yes they're mine! get off my back!) We are very happy with our house purchase and hope to have many more years in our palace on the hill!

Remember Monty and I walked in the Purina Walk for Dog Guides a couple months back?

I just wanted to report that donations you made, combined with the other walkers from 160 communities across Canada raised $633,000 for the Lions Club Dog Guide Programs!!

High Five!

I don't have to go to work tomorrow! They are ripping out the disgusting gross old carpet so it was decided that it would be too dusty for us to work there.

What a GIFT! Because I could really use a day off away from that place Enough said

I have been exchanging emails with a lady who wrote me that she lost her Golden Retriever to cancer 16 months ago and feels that a part of her died with her dog. She is thinking about getting another dog, but seems so guilty and torn at the thought. I shared my experiences and thoughts with her and that spurred me on to have a good cry.

Next month will mark 3 years since I had to put my best friend Winger to sleep. Surf followed, just two months later. In a way I can't believe it's been 3 years and in other ways it feels like they are like a distant memory.

I think about them every day - usually Monty (their nephew) will trigger a memory through his actions and antics. But I don't cry much anymore. Once in awhile I have to stop recalling a story about one of them because I'll choke up. Looking back, I'm sure I cried every day for that first year. After I marked getting through that first year without them, I realized that if I kept trying to remember every single little thing about them, then I would never be able to shake the grief. I had to let go a little bit. I had to do it to be fair to Monty, I had to do it if I was going to have a future with Jeff, and most importantly, I had to do it for myself.

And now it's almost 3 years later, and every few months I have to scratch open those emotional scars to feel the pain again. I'm not sure if I do it because I feel they deserve some sort of acknowledgement, or if I'm afraid I'm going to forget them completely, or if it is just healthy to cry a couple times a year. Luckily these times often co-insides with Jeff being out of town so he doesn't have to witness the tear festival going on in here. (he's in Sydney this week)

I usually start by reading the memory stories I wrote for each of them after they died. Winger's is here, and Surf's is here. Then I dig right in and load up a few videos I have of them - so I can see them swimming and I can hear them breathing. They were always so happy.

Even reading their memory stories tonight, I realized how many things I've forgotten about them already. I forgot about Winger's love for all food except celery. I can see him right now gobbling celery, giving it a chew, and then flicking it back off his tongue onto the kitchen floor. He hated celery. And I forgot that. But that is okay. It has to be okay.

Thanks to Shawn at Virgin Mobile, my problems are *hopefully* (fingers crossed) fixed. Of course my cell phone is still dead because of it's "swim". So I have spent FAR too many hours trying to figure out what cellphone and what cellphone features I wanted.

I am sticking with Virgin Mobile. Their prices just can not be beat. And they throw in voicemail, call display, 3 way calling, call forwarding, call waiting for free - even on a pre-paid phone.

I kept my old cell phone number so if you had it before, it's still good.

I decided to treat myself a little. No I didn't get a blackberry - don't be silly. I did get the Samsung R610.

It's a mid-range phone, between a basic phone and a full blown smart phone. It slides open to use, so the keys are always protected (no accidental calls!). It has a 1.3 meg camera, nice big colour screen, and has a memory card for saving pics, music, videos, etc.

Virgin Mobile has a mobile web browsing plan, unlimited, for $7/mth. I signed up so I can try it out for a month to see what the mobile web is about. I am thinking about making a mobile version of a couple of my websites, so now I see what it actually looks like. It doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard, and I hate texting on the stupid number pad, but I'm not going full blown into an iPhone or a Blackberry right now. I probably went over kill on this one, but we'll see.

I could have got the phone for free with a 3 year plan, but I don't like signing my future away anymore, but I'll stick with Pay as You Go for now (I mostly just call Jeff at his office or at home).

I've already played with Twitter and Facebook on it. And it has weather so I checked the weather to verify this rain was forecast So far I like this phone. The camera takes a decent picture. I think surfing the web with it eats the battery super fast, but that is probably to be expected.

OH! and I bought a case too with a belt clip to keep it safe! (and DRY!)

I don't know HOW I didn't hear that the Truck and Tractor Pull was starting tonight until a hour before it began! I LOOOOVE tractor pulls!

I rushed home from work and dragged my husband back into town to the fair grounds for the event. The first half of the events were tonight and tomorrow there are even more classes to watch! I think we'll stick with just tonight's show though. There really is a limit to the number of hours one can comfortably sit on old rickety bleachers.

And what a show it was! Not only were there tractor's pulling, there were 4x2 trucks, 4x4 trucks, highway tractor trailer rigs, AND suped up lawnmowers! And it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO loud! I couldn't take action shots because I had a finger deeply inserted into each of my ears!

Here are two movies for you to set the scene! Turn on your speakers if you can!

Before:

After!!

Yes, that is a riding mower!

Oops! This driver was disqualified by driving out of bounds, and crashing into the big advertising signs!

I wish I got pictures of the big transport trucks going, but it was dark by then and my camera didn't take anything good. There were a couple of big tractors too - right off the farm. The Case kicked the John Deere's ass, in case you are keeping score

We've been very disappointed in the Canadian Olympic coverage so far.

It's all American!

Why do I want to watch the US volleyball and the US basketball and the swimming!! This insane focus on an American swimmer going for 8 metals has me turning off the tv! In his first race a Canadian finished 5th. He got ZERO focus. They didn't even mention for awhile what place he came in. All we hear was about the American and his life story. They interviewed the American who came in 3rd place instead. Not one word with the Canadian in 5th place.

WHY????????????????????????

We are so focused on metals that we'll focus on a US competitor that ranks higher? As a Canadian I'm very proud of our athletes, and if one finishes 5th I think that is incredible and I want to know about it and that athlete.

I don't want to watch the US women's volleyball because we don't have a team of our own. How about we watch some coverage of sports we DID compete in. Just because we don't finish in the top 3 doesn't make it not worthy of our support! If I want to watch the Olympics with a US focus I'll watch NBC!

Brian, Leanne, and Hadley stayed with us for the weekend.

Yesterday we went to the beach! I have never swam in the ocean... and I didn't this time either! I did wade up to my thighs, but I chickened out from diving right in. Jeff was the only crazy one to do that.

Beach conditions:

Jeff and Brian contemplating the possibility of a swim:

Leanne and Hadley and the almost completely deserted beach, except for a couple other crazy people and two really cold looking lifeguards.

Brian and Hadley looking for treasures:

We packed a lunch for the beach, but there were so many mosquitos out we had a picnic in our car! Here is Hadley blowing me a kiss!

I know you've been dying to know what we bought for ourselves!

Sianora old mailbox with the big holes in the bottom!

No more soggy mail for us!

My Uncle Ed and Aunt Nora stopped by last night! They are here in Nova Scotia for a week while Ed is at a conference for chicken farmers.

What a busy week!

Jeff's parents left on Tuesday morning. Ed and Nora were here on Thursday night, and my brother Brian, his wife Leanne, and daughter Hadley will be here tonight!

Three new blog posts are in the works.

Stay tuned for highlights from:

-The Sherbrooke Village
-The Fortress of Louisbourg
-Our Latest Purchase

In the meantime, I need to finish my work day.
It's damp and dark out - and only 15°C.